


So This Is What It Feels Like (Being At The Right Place, The Right Time)

by nerddowell



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Bucky has the most teenage girl taste in music it's Embarrassing, James Buchanan Barnes what are you doing with your life, M/M, Meet-Cute, Steve Rogers is a little shit, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, people-hating Starbucks employee Bucky Barnes, the cutest of meet-cutes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 17:20:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14573823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerddowell/pseuds/nerddowell
Summary: If Bucky didn’t have to have this job to pay off his student debts, he’d have thrown the towel in approximately eight minutes after having been hired six months ago.Fill for otpprompts on Tumblr:A works at a retail store, it is a quiet night when Michael Buble’s “just haven’t met you yet” comes on. A starts dancing/singing along to the song. They don’t notice B enter the store/approach the counter/watching them until A sings the line “I just haven’t met you yet” and they happen to turn to face/ open their eyes and see B staring at them.





	So This Is What It Feels Like (Being At The Right Place, The Right Time)

**Author's Note:**

> Title from _Right Place, Right Time_ by Olly Murs.
> 
> Sorry I'm writing such shit nowadays, I'm honestly just flexing my writing muscles again because they've been atrophying for what feels like the last 8 thousand years.

If Bucky didn’t have to have this job to pay off his student debts, he’d have thrown the towel in approximately eight minutes after having been hired six months ago. The Starbucks he was working at was entirely too close to a local school, meaning that every lunchtime he had to deal not only with the adults (by which he meant actual adults, who could do adult things, not 20-somethings who could barely remember where they left their house keys that morning like him) who want their flat whites two minutes ago and yell at him over the counter, but the 15-year-old girls who order drinks only to Instagram the Starbucks logo on the cups, drink half of it, and then dump the rest in the trash just as he’s got a full bag to take out. (There have been several days where he’s seriously considered whether a life of being rammed in prison showers would be worth strangling the next girl to do that.) Thankfully, he was coming to the end of his shift, it was thirty minutes to closing, and the whole place had been all but empty since half five that evening.

Since he had the place to himself, he’d hooked his iPod up to the speaker system and was blasting _Blank Space_ at full volume, dancing with the broom and ignoring Natasha rolling her eyes as she grabbed her coat to get out of there, asap. (Nat _hated_ Taylor Swift, and he knew it and used it against her more than was probably wise.) He was singing along at the top of his voice as he swept the marble floors, letting his hair out of the bun he kept it tied in for work to swish it dramatically around his face (haireography, he thought that was called, not that he cared as long as he looked like Beyoncé doing it).

Taylor Swift got him through sweeping the floors, but mopping required bringing out the big guns. Bucky headed into the back to scroll through his songs, skipping past Carly Rae Jepsen (whispering an apology as he did so, because no matter how much Clint mocked him, _Call Me Maybe_ was a _bop_ ) and selecting Michael Bublé’s _Crazy Love_ album. He’d bought the CD for his mother last Christmas as a patently flimsy excuse, because his mom got to listen to it all of once before it mysteriously made its way into Bucky’s car and never left. So sue him. Sometimes you just need some smooth listening for long car rides. Or short ones. Or just sitting in the car for a one-man indoor disco.

(He understands now why Clint always calls him crazy.)

He hit shuffle songs on the iPod controls, and the first track that started playing was _Haven’t Met You Yet_ , the first single for the album and the best thing Michael Bublé had released in years (in Bucky’s opinion) – and that was up against some stiff competition (again, in Bucky’s opinion). Heading back onto the shop floor, he started cleaning up behind the bar, changing date labels on the refrigerator cases and wishing Starbucks let their employees eat the stuff that was going out that night. (He’d begged Nat many a time, citing starvation, but she just raised an eyebrow at him.)

‘I tried so very hard to lose it, I came up with a million excuses, I thought – I thought of every possibility–’

He sang along as he reorganised stacks of to-go cups, picking things up and putting them down again to look busy whenever he remembered that Tony was always getting at him for messing around during closing. He cursed in the middle of one line of the song when he knocked a nearly-full bottle of milk off the side and all over the floor and stomped off to fetch the mop to clean it up, prancing around with it and doing pirouettes in between squeezing it out into the bucket.

‘I might have to wait, I’ll never give up – I guess it’s half timing and the other half’s luck…’

He flung the mop back in the cupboard and sashayed across the floor, banging his hip on a table and trying to style it out by turning the movement into another pirouette; but then the song dropped and he was stomping around the shop floor blowing the shit out of an air trumpet during the instrumental break, putting everything he had into the imaginary performance. As the song picked back up, he kept singing and doing wide, splayed star jump Fred Astaire steps to glide across the floors. (He loved how skiddy his Converse were on these floors sometimes.)

‘And I know someday that it’ll all turn out, you’ll make me work so we can work to work it out, and I promise you, kid, that I’ll give so much more than I get – I just haven’t met you–’

He kept going until he nearly knocked someone over, a well-built blonde with sparkling blue eyes and a wide, amused smile on his lips. ‘– yet.’

The guy grinned at him and took Bucky’s hand, leading him in a teasing sort of two-step, spinning him out and back in, as he continued singing along. Bucky had to admit that the newcomer’s voice was much better than his own; deep and rich and beautiful, with the perfect jazz tones that spoke of someone trained to sing instead of just enthusiastically serenading their shower every morning like Bucky, and he was determined that the blush on his cheeks would _go down_ otherwise he was going to threaten it.

(How he was going to threaten his own bodily functions, and with what, he wasn’t sure, but he wasn’t about to let himself to continue blushing like a schoolgirl in front of a cute boy who sang like a blond Bublé himself and was built like Thor.) (Jesus assfucking Christ, he _was_ crazy.)

‘I just haven’t met you yet, oh promise you, kid, to give so much more than I get – I said love, love, love, love, love, love, love–’ The guy still hadn’t let go of Bucky’s hand, nor had he stopped twirling him all over the floor, the mop laying limp and forgotten on the floor while Bucky tried not to go too starry-eyed and failed miserably.

‘I just haven’t met you yet, yeah, I just haven’t met you yet.’

Bucky was gutted when the song finished, because the guy stopped singing and finally let go of his hand, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkling, with an awkward chuckle.

‘Sorry. Got carried away there.’

‘Where the hell did you learn to dance like that?’ Bucky demanded, forgetting entirely that he hadn’t even introduced himself; he just glared at the other guy in disbelief.

‘I watched someone who was pretty good,’ the blond said with a teasing smile, and gestured for Bucky to move out of the way before taking gliding Fred Astaire steps across the floor and – oh Christ, he’d been watching Bucky since the very beginning.

Bucky buried his face in his hands with a mortified groan, and the other boy burst out laughing.

‘Aw, don’t get all shy now.’ He grinned at Bucky. ‘You’re a good dancer.’

‘Nobody was supposed to _see_ , though–’

‘You know how big those windows are, right?’ the blond snickered, gesturing at the floor-to-ceiling windows in the front of the shop. ‘I’ve had _the best_ view of you _all_ evening.’ He gestured to the art supplies store across the road, which Bucky suddenly realised the guy was wearing the uniform for. He groaned again, running his hands through his sweaty hair. He hoped Steve hadn’t seen the haireography as well.

‘Hang on one second, I’m just going to go drown myself in the ice chest,’ Bucky said, making to turn away, and the blond laughed.

‘Don’t, honestly. I’m sorry for embarrassing you.’ He smiled, genuinely nice this time, and stuck out a hand. ‘I’m Steve.’

‘I’m Bucky,’ Bucky told him.

‘I know.’ Steve pointed at his chest. ‘Name badge. What kind of a name is _Bucky_ , anyway?’

‘A name belonging to our fifteenth President, which my mom saw fit to saddle me with on March 10th, 1996,’ Bucky said with a groan, rubbing a hand over his face.

‘At least your birthday isn’t the most patriotic day of the year.’

‘You’re kidding.’

‘Nope. July 4th, 1994.’

Bucky clapped him on the shoulder with a mock-sympathetic expression. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know what sarcasm sounds like when I hear it,’ Steve mock-growled, and Bucky cackled.

‘Sure. Jesus, could you be more of an all-American boy-next-door stereotype? Blond, blue-eyed, built like a brick shithouse, your birthday is the _Fourth of July_ for Christ’s sake–’ He snickered. ‘I bet you live on Mom’s apple pie, right?’

‘I did,’ Steve said, and Bucky’s stomach plummets.

‘…I’m sorry.’

‘It’s fine.’ Steve huffs a small laugh, squeezing Bucky’s shoulder. ‘It was years ago, I’m over it. Honestly.’

‘I’m still sorry. That’s what people say in these situations, right?’

Steve huffed another laugh. ‘Yeah, I guess.’ He smiled at Bucky, warm and friendly, and Bucky’s traitorous stomach did a somersault.

‘Anyway, since you’re in a Starbucks, can I get you anything? I can do, uh…’ He trotted behind the bar for a quick check. ‘… A frappe, a refresher, an iced tea, or maybe a filter.’ He checked inside the filter coffee machine. ‘Scratch the filter, I cleaned that already. Getting shit done like a boss!’ He congratulated himself with a self-five, and Steve snorted.

‘I guess a…’ Steve checked the menu, ‘a shaken iced black tea lemonade, please.’

‘Tall, grande or venti?’

‘Tall. To go, right? If you’re closing?’

‘Yeah, sorry.’ Bucky wrote up the order on the side of the cup out of pure habit. ‘Two forty-five.’

Steve passed him the money, and Bucky rang it through the till and then turned away to make up the drink order. Steve hummed and tapped his fingers on the counter as he was waiting, something that usually drove Bucky insane when other customers did it, but from Steve, it wasn’t so bad. He thought he recognised the tune Steve was humming as well: something old, from the fifties or sixties, the kind of thing Bucky’s grandparents listened to on the oldies stations on their radio.

It came to him all of a sudden, and he grinned.

‘But don’t forget who’s takin’ you home, and in whose arms you’re gonna be… So darlin’, save the last dance for me!’

Steve smiled at him and took the drink as Bucky passed it over the top of the counter.

‘Hey,’ he said quietly, and Bucky looked up from where he’d ducked down to mop the last of the milk up with a cloth.

‘Hmm?’

‘Did you want to, um, go for a coffee or something?’

‘…Now?’

‘Well, whenever, really.’ Steve suddenly flushed, a charmingly bright shade of pink spreading over his cheeks, and Bucky grinned, delighted.

‘Well, I mean we’re the last Starbucks to stay open in the area, but I wouldn’t say no to a drink of something else somewhere different.’

Steve opened his mouth and then closed it again quickly, a small smile on his lips.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah.’ Bucky dumped the cloth in the sink. ‘Give me five minutes to lock up, and I’m all yours.’

Steve beamed, taking a sip of his iced tea lemonade. Then he frowned, held his cup up to the light, and turned accusing eyes on Bucky.

‘You didn’t.’

‘What?’ Bucky asked, all innocence.

‘‘Captain America’? Are you serious?’

Bucky laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently these two taking the piss out of each other for Steve's birthday and Bucky's name are A Thing in my fics now.
> 
> Come yell at me on [Tumblr](http://translorastyrell.tumblr.com/msg) if you want me to stop. Or if you want to prompt me. I'm open to suggestions.


End file.
